RELATED: Full race results from Phoenix
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AVONDALE, Ariz. – Before Friday, Alex Bowman had never won a pole in NASCAR’s premier series.
Before Sunday, he’d led only nine laps in 79 career starts.
Friday at Phoenix International Raceway, he won his first Sprint Cup pole; two days later, he nearly pulled off the biggest upset of the Chase in the Can-Am 500 at Phoenix International Raceway.
But contact with Kyle Busch and then race leader Matt Kenseth on an overtime restart sent Kenseth’s Toyota up the track and into the wall. The skirmish cost Bowman three spots, and he lost another on the final, race-ending two-lap run.
“Our car didn’t really take off on restarts all day long very well,” Bowman said after his impressive sixth-place finish, a career best for the 23-year-old in Sprint Cup competition. “So we had to make our way back up through there … we got to second at the end and had that caution come out.”
The restart wasn’t “terrible,” he said, “and the 18 (of Busch) turned me sideways getting into the corner. … I don’t know … I almost feel like the 20 (of Kenseth) though he was clear. … I wasn’t at the best angle but I was also against the inside wall when we made contact.”
It wasn’t the impression Bowman had hoped to make after such an impressive afternoon. “I would have raced the hell out of him for the win, but definitely didn’t want to do that,” he said.
The incident took Kenseth and the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team out of title contention.
RELATED: Late wreck eliminates Kenseth from Chase
Bowman, a native of Tucson, led 194 of the 324 laps. Making just his ninth start of the season in place of the injured Dale Earnhardt Jr., the personable part-time driver gave the field a full-time look at the backside of the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
Chase drivers were vying for the final two spots in Sunday’s Championship 4 at Homestead-Miami Speedway (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Bowman was vying for more seat time. Earnhardt Jr.’s expected return next season means Bowman likely resumes his work as simulator driver extraordinaire for HMS.
Bowman had led 101 consecutive laps, and 194 of the first 257, before he was finally shuffled off the top spot during a round of pit stops inside the final 50 laps.
It didn’t take him long to make his way back toward the front of the pack.
In two years, first with BK Racing and then Tommy Baldwin Racing, Bowman had mustered only two finishes better than 20th (both at restrictor-plate tracks). Sunday’s finish was his third top-10 in nine starts with Hendrick.
He learned, he said, “probably that the race car just makes a hell of a difference.”
“I think I’ve had four Cup races here, and I don’t even know if I’ve finished inside the top 30 in any of them, and then came here with Hendrick Motorsports and led almost 200 laps. There (are) a lot of guys in the garage that can get the job done and run up front, they just don’t get the opportunity to show it, and I’m just thankful that I was given the opportunity to show it today.”
Kenseth wasn’t placing blame afterward as he tried to come to grips with the elimination. Bowman, meanwhile, was trying to balance feeling good about his own performance with the late-race incident and its consequences.
“I don’t know Matt,” he said. “He’s probably really mad at me right now I’d imagine, but hopefully we can move past it and race clean at Homestead.”